Ai WeiWei’s incredible installation of millions of ceramic sunflower seeds is up right now at the Tate Modern in London.  In Adrian Searle’s review for the Guardian, he says,  “It is a work of great simplicity and complexity. Sunflower Seeds refers to everyday life, to hunger (the seeds were a reliable staple during the Cultural Revolution), to collective work, and to an enduring Chinese industry.”

 “The meanings are as multiple and singular as its form. Ai Weiwei has taken the lesson of Duchamp’s readymade and Warhol’s multiples and turned them into a lesson in Chinese history and western modernisation, and the price individuals in China pay for that. Every unique seed is homogenised into a sifting mass. Most contemporary Chinese art is a product made for western consumption, just as willow-pattern plates or porcelain vases were shipped out in huge quantities for the western market.” – Adrian Searle

And this video is a MUST SEE video about this work …

Field trip to the Tate Modern anyone?

See you in the studio.

Prof. brian